Etaoin shrdlu

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"etaoin" redirects here. It is not to be confused with tan, a figure of Irish myth
ology.

Top: Etaoin shrdlu appearing in a 1903 publication of The New York Times (third
line from the bottom). Bottom: A humorous and intentional example of etaoin shrd
lu in a 1916 publication of The Day Book.
Etaoin shrdlu (/'?ti???n'???rdlu?/[1] or /'e?.t??n.?r?d'lu?/[2]) is a nonsense p
hrase that sometimes appeared in print in the days of "hot type" publishing beca
use of a custom of type-casting machine operators. It appeared often enough to b
ecome part of newspaper lore, and "etaoin shrdlu" is listed in the Oxford Englis
h Dictionary and in the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
It is the approximate order of frequency of the 12 most commonly used letters in
the English language.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Appearance outside typography
2.1 Computing
2.2 Literature
2.3 Media
2.4 Music
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
History[edit]
The letters on type-casting machine keyboards (such as Linotype and Intertype) w
ere arranged by letter frequency, so e-t-a-o-i-n s-h-r-d-l-u were the lowercase
keys in the first two vertical columns on the left side of the keyboard. When op
erators made a mistake in composing, they would often finish the line by running
a finger down the first two columns of the keyboard and then start over. Occasi
onally the faulty line of hot-metal type would be overlooked and printed erroneo
usly.
A documentary about the last issue of The New York Times to be composed in the h
ot-metal printing process (2 July 1978) was titled Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu.[4]
In 1966, Irving Fang analyzed a collection of newspaper text and television news
copy, and produced the ordering "ETAONIRSHDLC".[5] Peter Norvig processed the G
oogle Books Ngrams in 2013 and found its ordering was "ETAOINSRHLDCU".[6]
Appearance outside typography[edit]
A Linotype machine keyboard. It has the following alphabet arrangement twice, on
ce for lower case (the black keys) and once for upper case (the white keys), wit
h the keys in the middle for numbers and symbols: etaoin / shrdlu / cmfwyp / vbg
kqj / xz
The phrase has gained enough notability to appear outside typography, including:
Computing[edit]
SHRDLU was used in 1972 by Terry Winograd as the name for an early artificial-in
telligence system in Lisp.[7]
The ETAOIN SHRDLU Chess Program was written by Garth Courtois Jr. for the Nova 1
200 mini-computer, competing in the 6th and 7th ACM North American Computer Ches
s Championship 1975 and 1976.[8]
"Etienne Shrdlu" was used as the name of a character in Mavis Beacon Teaches Typ
ing, touch-typing training software from the late 1980s.[9]
Literature[edit]
Elmer Rice's 1923 play The Adding Machine includes Shrdlu as a character.[10]
In 1942 Etaoin Shrdlu was the title of a short story by Fredric Brown about a se
ntient Linotype machine. (A sequel, Son of Etaoin Shrdlu: More Adventures in Typ
er and Space, was written by others in 1981.)[10]
Anthony Armstrong's 1945 whimsical short story "Etaoin and Shrdlu" ends "And Sir
Etaoin and Shrdlu married and lived so happily ever after that whenever you com
e across Etaoin's name even today it's generally followed by Shrdlu's".[10]
It is the name of a science fiction fanzine edited by Sheldon Lee Glashow & Stev
en Weinberg[11]
Mr. Etaoin is a character the Abalone newspaper typesetter in The Circus of Dr.
Lao.[12]
"Mr. Shrdlu -- Etaoin Shrdlu" is Houn' Dog's response to Pogo's question, "What
you say his name is, Houn' Dog?" referencing the author of Webster's Dictionary
in the daily strip for March 11, 1950, by Walt Kelly (reproduced on page 51 of t
he first paperback collection of Pogo cartoons, Pogo).
Thomas Pynchon named a character "Etienne Cherdlu" in his early short story The
Secret Integration (1962) (see Slow Learner (1984)).
Three pieces in The New Yorker magazine were published in 1925, under the pen na
me Etain Shrdlu.[13]
At least one piece in The New Yorker magazine has Etaoin Shrdlu in the title.[14
]
Edwin Morgan's poem "A View of Things", published in his collection The Second L
ife (1968), contains the line "what I love about newspapers is their etaoin shrd
l".[15]
H. Beam Piper used "etaoin shrdlu" as part of someone swearing in his book Four
Day Planet.[16]
Max Shulman used the term as a name of several once-referenced characters in the
1944 book Barefoot Boy with Cheek
Media[edit]
In 1958, the National Press Club (USA) published Shrdlu - An Affectionate Chroni
cle, a 50-year retrospective of the Club's history.[17]
Etaoin Shrdlu is the name of a character in at least two Robert Crumb comic stor
ies. The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 14
Etaoin and Shrdlu both appear frequently in the drawings of Emile Mercier, as pl
ace names, racehorses' names and people's names.
"Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu," filmed on July 1, 1978, is a documentary by David Loe
b Weiss that chronicles the end of "hot type" and the introduction of computers
into The New York Times s printing process. THE NEW YORK TIMES | Oct. 13, 2016
Music[edit]
Shrdlu (Norman Shrdlu) is listed as the composer of "Jam Blues", cut 1 on the 19
51 Norman Granz produced Jazz album released in 1990 as "Charlie Parker Jam Sess
ion". This appears to be a joke on Parker's part as Norman Shrdlu is credited in
several Parker (and other) tunes.
"Etaoin Shrdlu" is the title of the first song on Cul de Sac's 1999 album Crashe
s to Light, Minutes to Its Fall.
See also[edit]
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References[edit]
Jump up ^ "etaoin shrdlu". Merriam-Webster. Encyclopdia Britannica.
Jump up ^ Weiss, David Loeb. "Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu". New York Times. New York
Times. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
Jump up ^ Stoddard, Samuel (2004). "Letter Frequency". Fun With Words. RinkWorks
. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
Jump up ^ Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu (Motion picture). New York City: Educational M
edia Collection/University of Washington. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
Jump up ^ Irving E. Fang, "It Isn't ETAOIN SHRDLU; It's ETAONI RSHDLC," Journali
sm Quarterly, December 1966, vol. 43, no. 4, pages 761-762
Jump up ^ "English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited or ETAOIN SRHLDCU"
. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
Jump up ^ Winograd, Terry. "How SHRDLU got its name". SHRDLU. Stanford Universit
y. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
Jump up ^ Courtois Jr., Garth (7 August 2008). "Am I old enough to remember keyp
unch cards? Umm, yeah...". Blog Archives. ababsurdo.com. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
Jump up ^ Weasel, Yah. "Let's Play Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing". YouTube. Retrie
ved 26 August 2015.
^ Jump up to: a b c Quinion, Michael. "etaoin shrdlu". Weird Words. World Wide W
ords. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
Jump up ^ Carter Scholz, Gregory Benford, Hugh Gusterson, Sam Cohen, Curtis LeMa
y. "Radiance". Retrieved 24 April 2016.
Jump up ^ Charles G. Finney (1935), The Circus of Dr. Lao, Viking Press, ISBN 4-
87187-664-0
Jump up ^ "Etain Shrdlu - The New Yorker". The New Yorker. 28 March 1925. Retrie
ved 24 April 2016.
Jump up ^ Charles Cooke (31 October 1936). "It Can't Etaoin Shrdlu.". The New Yo
rker. Retrieved 24 April 2016.
Jump up ^ "A View of Things". The Edwin Morgan Archive at the Scottish Poetry Li
brary. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
Jump up ^ Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper.
Jump up ^ Shrdlu - An Affectionate Chronicle. Washington, DC: National Press Clu
b. 1958.
External links[edit]
Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu at the Internet Movie Database
"What's the origin of the mysterious phrase etaoin shrdlu?" at The Straight Dope
Excerpt demonstrating etaoin shrdlu from the film Linotype: The Film at the Inte
rnet Movie Database
Over 100 examples of the phrase used in American newspapers from 1836 1922 at the
Library of Congress
English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited or ETAOIN SRHLDCU
[hide] v t e
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